


Dominicus Paranormal Investigators

by NinthTrash



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, F/F, F/M, Ghost Hunters, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Multi, They have a history, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:35:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23322535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinthTrash/pseuds/NinthTrash
Summary: My name is Coronabeth Tridentarius. I never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video....With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by renowned paranormal medium Harrowhark Nonagesimus, our equipment tech and my twin sister Ianthe Tridentarius, and our cameraman Gideon Nav. The four of us will travel to some of the most highly active paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night, being locked down from dusk until dawn....Raw...Extreme...This is Dominicus Paranormal Investigators.
Relationships: Camilla Hect/Palamedes Sextus, Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Judith Deuteros/Marta Dyas
Comments: 37
Kudos: 58





	1. The One Where Gideon is (Probably) Shanked by a Baby Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> "And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming"- Edgar Allan Poe.

Each creaking step was the downbeat to a chorus of heart palpitations as Gideon Nav descended into hell.

Well, not hell technically.

“If you dawdle any longer we’ll be stuck here until morning, Griddle. Move.”

Easy enough for the icy voice at the top of the stairway to say, since its owner wasn’t the one who had to go down solo into the haunted basement where some dearly departed asshole decided to summon a few demons and bury the evidence underneath the floorboards.

With the camera still recording, Gideon relinquished her grip on the flimsy banister railing to flash a rude gesture back towards her ebony-clad medium before steadying herself again. The last thing she needed was to trip the rest of the way down the highway to hell and break her equipment upon touchdown.

“I still don’t understand why you’d send the cameraman down first…I thought you wanted the series to not rely so much on cheap scares and more on- oh I don’t know, the paranormal.”

Gideon couldn’t keep herself from catching her breath as the rubber bottoms of her converse pressed jarringly to concrete instead of brittle wood as she nearly missed the last descending step. There was silence for a long moment as her eyes squeezed shut before blinking open again in a poor attempt at adjusting to the inky darkness of the basement.

In a flash of genius she remembered that she had the capability to view her surroundings with the night vision lens of her handheld camera. Gideon used one (definitely not trembling) finger to click the brightness tool to the correct setting. Various shades of sickly green shapes and forms materialized into frame where her blinded eyesight failed.

The door at the top of the stairs shut with a metallic moan.

“Shiiii—” The hairs at the back of Gideon’s neck immediately stood on end as her spun around to face the now newly darkened stairwell. That bitch. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, medium extraordinaire who enjoyed the company of ghosts and wraiths over that of the living, reluctantly relented to their viewers demands for clips of the charismatic and gloriously ginger cameraman scaring herself shitless in a myriad of haunted basements.

The script always went as follows: Gideon goes downstairs. Gideon films herself getting spooked. The rest of the team join her to get down to official paranormal investigating business. Luckily for Harrow, Gideon wasn’t too bothered to play ‘bait’ and was desperate enough for the opportunity to get paid to do so.

“Fine- it’s fine…” The hand clutching the camcorder shifted until she held it with both hands; the nylon grip kept the device braced tightly around her palm so the video would remain steady. Her gaze flickered back to the display- using it to guide her path through unfamiliar territory. This certainly wasn’t her first rodeo but Gideon was reminded yet again just how deeply she really hated basements of the haunted variety. As she willed her legs to move she began to observe the room around her.

The only way to go was forward through a claustrophobic corridor no more than a meter’s width of walking space. On the left side, a dark concrete wall adorned with a spider’s web of cracks that leaked dribbles of water. Opposite on the right, a barrier of dilapidated cabinets with their hinged doors cracked open and plastic storage bins stacked haphazardly up to the ceiling.

Somewhere beyond this corridor lay the epicenter of the home’s paranormal activity- unearthed by a curious new homeowner with an even more curious collection of power tools- armed with the blessed intention of expanding the basement to add an underground jacuzzi. Gideon couldn’t help but grin at that disgustingly brilliant plan.

She wished she had a basement to add an underground jacuzzi to…fill it with some hot babes and declare bikinis as optional…her escapism could never last long under the hateful third eye of Ms. Nonagesimus. The delicious vision of her former classmate and one-time crush Coronabeth and the buxom barista who had smiled at her during her morning coffee run tangled around her in a bath of bubbly jacuzzi was cruelly interrupted by a harsh hiss issuing from the walkie-talkie at her hip.

She _really_ needed to stop fantasizing about every woman who showed her a shred of human decency.

_“Please tell me you haven’t already pissed yourself, Nav. Or are you trying to win an award for most uninspiring camera-work to ever be shown online?”_

The dulcet tones of barely concealed pissy-ness were as welcome as an ice bath, and Gideon cracked her neck to each side before hoisting the camera back into an eye-level position. “Just you wait. When you’re doing your little séance thing, I’ll make sure to zoom in on the booger hanging out of your delicate left nostril.” She kept her voice as casual as she could manage while galumphing forward down the cramped corridor.

There was a pregnant pause from the observers upstairs…then a crackle of someone standing too far from away for the walkie-talkie to interpret, and then a tired ‘fuck you’ from the bitch queen herself. Gideon huffed a chuckle through her not-delicate nostrils and glimpsed back at the view finder to keep from walking camera-first into a cabinet.

Cabinets full of really…normal shit.

In past investigations, Gideon had to deal with mummified pinky toes, unidentifiable flying objects (poltergeist, am I right?), and the worst…creepy little dolls. But all she could see in the viewfinder were mostly notably a stack of old crusty books with tattered spines among the flotsam and jetsam of a rather ordinary person’s basement stash.

There were clear bins full of what was probably family heirlooms and memories of lifetimes passed. With her back to the cold cement wall, Gideon turned the camera to purposefully scan along the cabinets for closer inspection. She could just picture in her head the image of Harrow hunched over Corona’s shoulder like a second shadow, those beady black eyes greedily searching for any kind of haunted paraphernalia she could sink her claws into.

On a positive note- Gideon would much rather be down in a dank and dark basement with her camera than be upstairs in the streaming room with Harrowhark breathing down her neck. That was the eternal affliction of their bubbly web-series director and host, Coronabeth Tridentarius and her weird twin sister Ianthe, adept in all things technology and equipment. And deservedly so.

Nearly half a year ago fresh zit-faced and flipping pancakes at a local 24/7 breakfast diner, Gideon Nav had been approached by the perfectly posh post-grad who claimed to recognize the former jock from a freshman year Film Studies class. It had been a throwaway class for the formerly aspiring Olympic fencer.

Corona had found herself a tried and true medium in the macabre form of a Harrowhark and now a cameraman in the delectable form of a Gideon. And trusty assistant in the form of…a snack-stealing Ianthe. After discovering a knack for not only maintaining a perfectly steady grip on a camera but also her propensity for entertaining strangers on the internet by subjecting herself to the horrors of creepy little demons dolls in haunted basements, Gideon found herself yet again…in a haunted basement.

_“Stop! Go back a step…there. Cease dancing, Griddle. Zoom in on that…”_

The fuzziness of the walkie-talkie did nothing to stop the chill that ran down Gideon’s cervical spine. Harrow’s voice had the texture that could only be compared to the aftermath of swallowing a spiny sea urchin…pointy, prickly, poisonous. She obeyed her medium’s orders with a sarcastic grunt of ‘please and thank you’ that was only met with static silence from the device on her hip.

Assuming that the aforementioned ‘that’ was a slightly ajar cabinet door- the mass of dark grey furniture filled the viewfinder. “What exactly am I supposed to be looking at, oh Mistress Worthy of Ghoulish Nomenclature?”

This time Corona’s trumpet bray of laughter overpowered any sort of black magic cursing that Harrowhark was certainly casting upon Gideon’s eternal soul- the guffawing so loud that the walkie-talkie vibrated in its’ leather belt-holster.

So loud that Gideon Nav almost didn’t notice each cabinet door in the hallway simultaneously slamming shut.

Emphasis on _almost_.

Oxygen vacated her lungs before Gideon could even say ‘boo’ and she plastered her back to the conveniently safe and solid concrete wall. Now her eyes were glued to the viewfinder as her skull’s control center played leap-frog with her agitated corpus. Scanning carefully from right to left, Gideon allowed herself to sip in air through pursed lips.

At least things were starting to look less like a stimulating episode of ‘House Hunters- Your Grandma’s Basement Edition’ and more like the advertised ‘Dominicus Paranormal Investigators: Drearburh Home’. Delightful.

“I gotta say I’m a little disappointed.” Gideon’s common sense was always the last gear to turn in the clunky cog machine that was her ego, and in her moment of mounting panic she did the only thing she could think to do. “The last cursed basement ghost that tried to seduce me could whistle ‘Livin’ On a Prayer’ while opening AND closing all the cabinet doors. Kinda makes me think you aren’t all that after all…maybe you’re just a dumb baby ghost.”

Because nothing made for better quality content than a drawling butch wielding a camcorder talking smack into thin air.

_“I swear if you make a mockery out of this, Gideon Nav, I will—”_

Gideon Nav would never know what Harrow would have done if she made a mockery out of this, because she was far too busy screaming. Screaming because before her medium could threaten her permanent bodily harm or promise her a very tortuous manifestation in limbo post-mortem, a child’s voice as thin and precise as a needle punctured her inner ear and wove like barbed thread through her frontal lobe.

_~If you run, I’ll simply chase. If you cry, I’ll devour your face._

_I have seen you but you can’t see me.~_

Staggering forward as if inebriated, the redhead lurched further down the hallway. In a horrifying instant Gideon realized she had lost control of her limbs. If she let herself analyze the situation too carefully- Gideon would have realized that it was the pressure of horrid, tiny hands shoving at the back of her legs that moved her. Horrid, tiny, unseen hands that were so unnaturally forceful they sent her colliding into deep-set, open space of the basement beyond the corridor.

Blind. She was dizzyingly _blind_. Where she couldn't see, Gideon's brain erupted into mourning. She would never be able to spar with Camilla Hect at the gym on Thursdays. She would never get to see Coronabeth’s glorious cleavage. She would never be able to experience the bliss of watching Harrowhark’s little black-lipsticked lips pucker up in disgust at one of her sidesplitting puns…ah damn, this was a fate too cruel for our heroine.

Gideon could distantly hear the significantly-less demonic cries of her companions’ fizzle faintly from the walkie-talkie that signaled their descent on what would more than likely be their cameraman’s murder scene. If she was going to perish by paranormal shenanigans, she might as well leave a sexy yet meaningful message for all of the beautiful women who would drape themselves overtop her coffin and toss in their panties before sealing the crypt.

Gideon turned the camcorder so that the lens would aim towards her face to capture her last moments. “Now I know you’re all thinking- ‘She was so young! So full of life! She had the BEST hair and a firm ass and knows her way around a sabre’ if ya know what I mean.” In a move that was simultaneously very brave and very sexy, she gave the live-streaming audience a wink.

The door leading from the main floor of the Drearburh home down to its bowels was wrenched open and the dull sound of two pairs of boots storming down quickly followed. Cheers love, the Calvary is here!

A new sound caught the auteur’s attention abruptly and she allowed herself to gulp once before flipping the camera to film towards the gaping void of the chamber that lay before her. If Gideon was correct in mentally recreating the layout of this room, she should be facing towards the small jacuzzi-sized hole carved through cement to coarse ground below. As bile ascended from her stomach cavity into her esophagus, it dawned upon Gideon that small jacuzzi-sized holes don’t normally giggle unless filled with bubbly water and gorgeous women.

Deep down in her twisting guts she knew that when she used the night vision in the viewfinder to look, there was, like, a dismal 6% chance of the giggling coming from bubbly water and gorgeous women. Gideon felt strangely unperturbed as she raised her seemingly deadened right arm and held the camcorder aloft. “Behold, enraptured audience! My demise!” Harrow and Corona would soon join their live-streamed audience to witness as she got shanked by a baby ghost.

_~If you run, I’ll devour your face. You see me, and you I’ll chase._

_Cry, little one, and die.~_

A fury of midnight appeared in the camcorder's viewfinder, and Harrowhark Nonagesimus descended upon the babe-less jacuzzi hole like it was the last Evanescence CD at the record shop.


	2. The One Without Pulp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: references to infanticide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If brokenness is a form of art, surely this must be my masterpiece."- Neptune, Sleeping At Last

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Drearburh Home:

_I have always preferred to work in the dark._

_The absence of light amplifies hidden sounds- the creaks and moans and faded laughter beyond the veil._

_Drearburh Home feels warm and sticky. Like a steady stream of blood from a puncture wound._

_I am a metaphysical interpreter. A one-way ticket historian. A communicator of the dead._

_I pushed past Gideon Nav and her camera; she took up too much space in the already confined basement._

_There, crouched in the midst of disturbed earth, the demon gazed back at me with old eyes. Faded and glimmering grey, I reckoned that its assumed form was that of an old man. A foregone body whose flabby skin appeared to be flirting with the notion of sloughing from his thick bones._

_Looks were naturally deceiving. The spirit cocked its head to one side and then the other in an animalistic mockery of observation as I stepped to the edge of his pit. The broken rocks under my boots made it difficult to stand on even footing but I knew I would have to step closer for it to hear me clearly._

_Somewhere in the darkness behind me Coronabeth’s vibrant voice was soothing our cameraman’s nerves by pleasantly appealing to the demon by saying, and I quote, “She didn’t really mean to call you a dumb baby ghost!”, which only made the spirit’s old eyes to flicker once to my companions before locking back on me._

‘I only wanted to play’

_Lies. Lies out of the mouth of God's scorned in a voice like a cacophony of two hundred expiring children._

_I took another step and lowered a few inches- my boot scraping soundlessly on the cracked cement again. From the corner of my vision I could catch sight of the waning shape of Ianthe holding out her EVP Recorder and EMF reader. At least someone could perform their job adequately…I felt my concentration tighten under the strain of blocking out Corona’s voice and Gideon’s golden eyes. It was so fucking hard to focus with those eyes watching._

_My attention sharpened when the demon shifted from its crouch to a slow stand. The top of his pearl-sheen head was haloed with a sparse tuft of hair. The naked entity wavered at its full height, only a few inches taller than me and so flimsy I could whisper and disperse his particles. My left hand carefully pinched the tip of my glove on my right middle finger and tugged the thin covering away. The air was palpable…warmer and stickier…I flexed my bare hand once before extending it out towards the demon._

_I only had to touch it to see. Old eyes were studying me as I took another step closer and I knew it could feel my even breaths. I wasn’t afraid- I hadn’t been afraid of anything that had obstinately remained on the wrong side of the veil since I discovered my gift. This was no exception. The demon, with my fingertips brushing against the milky aura of its head, split with a torrent of phantom ichor from where I made contact._

_As ice hot rage and another soul’s memories splintered in a beautiful, nostalgic climax, I closed my eyes and smiled._

* * *

Golden eyes flickered back and forth between the cascade of ‘[F]’s in the left hand chat box and the uploaded stream video on her laptop. _“Behold, my enraptured audience! My demise!”_ Did she really sound like that?

Gideon tried to fight back the small sunburst of warmth in her chest when the stream of ‘[F]’s were broken by username: ‘lethalsquirtsXxx’ having typed out a ‘no dont die Griddle i luv u RIP’. With a flourished click of the ‘thumbs up’ button, Griddle whispered ‘i luv u too’.

“ _What_ did you say?” Harrowhark's quiet hiss metaphorically sucker-punched her so hard that Gideon flinched.

For one spectacularly joyous moment Gideon had forgotten all about her eldritch companion. Her ill-fated roommate.

The sinister voice that came from the hotel bed was muffled; buried under starched bed linens and hoarded pillows. With the curtains drawn and the bedside lamps dimmed, the only light in room 114 of the nearest Red Roof Inn came from Gideon Nav’s luminescent laptop screen. With a less enthusiastic click, she paused the stream and removed her ear buds with a soft pop.

  
“You’re seriously not asleep? You’ve been laying there -not moving- for over an hour while being awake? What the fuck, Harrow…”  
Somewhere amidst the pile of hopefully stained linens and lumpy cushions a retort was volleyed back. It was muffled, but Gideon still could translate ‘mbbf’ into ‘silence, peasant’ as if she were fluent in the medium’s vernacular.

  
There had been many post-investigations spent in cheap motel rooms where she considered smothering Harrowhark with the closest knobby pillow she could reach. And the fact that the gothic terror was not locked away in a catacomb was for no lack of Gideon trying- Harrow was just always one shoe size-6 Demonia-brand creeper ahead of her nefarious plotting.

Case and point: for a prior gig’s booked hotel stay, Gideon had called a week beforehand and slipped a $5 bill to the check-in clerk to have room service come and arrange all of the bathroom towels into precious little animal shapes. Harrow had called in a week before that and slipped a $20 bill to the check-in clerk to have all of the orange juice served at the free 7am-10am breakfast buffet be strictly pulp-free. What kind of sick troglodyte drinks pulp-free orange juice? Gideon Nav shuddered in disgust as her memory relived that dreadful morning- even the towel animals hadn’t been able to soothe that burn.

  
Ms. Nonagesimus chose to play dead with only a few tufts of coal-black curls peeking out from her bed cocoon. Gladly, her conscious companion could go back to ignoring that they were sharing the same breathing air.

Even in a foreign space, the ‘hotel room tango’ they danced was specifically status quo. Upon entry, Harrow commandeered the bed and dumped her suitcase indifferently against it. Without uttering a word, she would stomp off to barricade herself in the bathroom for no less than an hour to shower and probably commit highly illegal and questionable crimes. Gideon, if she was spoiled enough, took the couch with a fabric design nostalgic for Chuck E Cheese carpeting. If the motel’s Yelp rating was 2 stars out of 5 or less, she took the squeaky-wheeled desk chair.

Once sedentary, Gideon would only move for food, toilet, or babes. Sadly- babes were in short supply, the toilet was not necessary at this time, and a breakfast buffet stocked with the pulpiest of juice wasn’t ready for another two hours.

  
A cramp was beginning to assault her calf muscle as her legs retracted from where they dangled over the couch’s angular arm-rest. Six feet of meticulously sculpted muscle clad in boxers shifted until Gideon found a new, less uncomfortable position while curled on her side with her laptop tucked warmly against her chest. Earbuds slid back in and her index finger slid along the touch pad to hover the pointed mouse overtop the play button.

  
Without fail, after each and every paranormal investigation, Gideon would re-watch the livestream and greedily feast on the eulogizing comments. Dominicus Paranormal Investigators would premiere their livestream investigations bi-monthly to their top contributing fans (a mind-bogglingly hundred or so patrons who kept their show alive and growing through donations). The subsequent days would be spent holed up in either the Tridentarius twins’ home or a hotel to edit the footage, decipher all visual and audio evidence, and record voiceovers to then combine them all into a spooky conglomerate on YouTube.

With a subscriber count that was quickly approaching the six-figure mark and recent talk of a sponsorship in the making, Dominicus Paranormal Investigators had latched itself onto Gideon Nav’s once-dismal life like a symbiotic fungi.

  
After yawning as obnoxiously as possible and peeking over the top of her laptop screen at the lump on the bed, Gideon was satisfied when the only response was a tiny twitch from a gloved hand that had shot out from under the covers. A tiny ‘click’ on the chrome touchpad resumed the livestream right at the moment when Harrowhark burst into frame.

  
Comments in varying stages of excited key-smashing read ‘HARK’, ‘(ง'̀-'́)ง’, and ‘we STAN a goth queen’ inspired the redhead to stick out her tongue in a very mature manner and downvote each and every one because she never once claimed that she wasn’t petty.

  
The only way you could tell the show's medium apart from Slenderman was by her stunted little limbs and her short-cropped jet-black hair. Otherwise, in Gideon’s very discerning opinion, they were the same freaky bitch. Harrow had paused at the edge of the jacuzzi pit and initiated a fierce staring contest with the air; Coronabeth’s curly hair blocked about half of the screen.

  
“ _She really didn’t mean to call you a dumb baby ghost!_ ” Corona cooed out the apology as the spooked-Gideon panned the camera up to better view the show’s host. Even in 480p night vision she was marvelous. She was clad in a sensible and stylish ‘DPI’ branded polo shirt, matching ‘DPI’ branded baseball cap perched precariously on a mountain of voluminous hair, and a smile that made all dentists in a fifty mile radius instantly bust a nut.

  
 _“Attention please, fellow investigators! We find ourselves in the basement of Drearburh Home where the owner, Ms. Aiglamene, reported to experience most of her paranormal activity!”_ Corona planted one of her hands firmly on her hourglass hips and while the other cocked an Infrared IR Thermometer in the direction of the pit’s edge. Gideon fervently prayed that it would read ’69’ degrees. Harrow had apparently won her silent optic-melee and had dropped her stance as though she were cautiously approaching a feral badger.

  
Corona continued speaking with the ease of an underpaid actress in a 2:00am infomercial for plasticware as the cameraman stepped backwards to fit all three investigators in the frame. _“Ianthe has the EVP Recorder ready- perhaps we should ask the spirit some questions! Hey spirit! How did you die? Do you know that you’re dead? Why are you attacking the new owner of the house? Can you attack Gideon again?”_ Leave it to Coronabeth to slight the demon with the dumbest questions yet still manage to be so visually stimulating.

Gideon paused the livestream for the second time that evening. Not to pester the nearby unconscious Harrowhark or to read the barrage of comments begging for the exuberant host to ask the demon if it was horny.

In a peculiar moment of intrigue that she had only indulged in a few times before, Gideon wanted to take a closer look at the medium. The three figures in the frame were frozen in the night-time gradient which reflected a ghoulish color back on the silent viewer's brown skin. Her mouth twisted as she expanded the picture and the black and grey pixels of Harrow’s petite form filled the screen. With one fragile arm extended and her body pivoted forward, the fun-sized Slenderman was completely exposed to the camera.

When Harrow communicated with spirits, she _smiled._

Gideon hated it. 

It was the tiny, minuscule motion of her eyebrows arching upwards. It was the way her shoulders forfeited all tension which made her typically constipated posture look relaxed. It was how her black-lipstick stained mouth would part just enough to present a few pixels of tongue and teeth. It was how the edges of her lips were curled up in saccharide bliss. 

Gideon hated it so much that she hadn't realized that her mouse had zoomed in far too closely on Harrowhark's grey pixelated mouth until it was too late. With a lurch of her stomach she slammed her laptop shut with a harsh 'click'.

The lump on the mattress didn't respond and the harsh silence was only punctuated by Gideon's unsteady breath. Her brain buzzed as though it had fallen asleep during her voyeuristic lapse and now as blood flowed steadily back into its pinched veins, she felt dirty. Her melodramatic mood was shifted only when a few minutes later, her cell phone chirped with a soft 'ping' from its perch on the couch's armrest.

Gideon clumsily mistyped her passcode twice before earning entry to the text sent from a 'Princess Corona' (said royalty demanded the cellular title, and being the loyal court jester that she was, Gideon obeyed). Golden eyes, relieved to be looking at anything other than Harrow's stupid smile, widened as she read the messily typed message from the show's host.

**Griddle! Next gig is goign to be collab with Pal Sextus + crew- from 6th House omg!! Will talk more over bkfast. <3**

\- _Read 5:13am_

* * *

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Drearburh Home:

_Two hundred innocent souls. That's who this demon was. Two hundred souls of children stuffed into the gaping jaws of a gluttonous void. Two hundred children dead at the hands of this beautiful monster._

_It named itself 'Crux'._

_The Center. The Puzzle. The Executioner._

_He was mouth-watering and I was ravenous._

_"Tell me more..." I felt his answer like a wave of blistering flame and biting frost that electrified the ends of my fingertips. All other perception had fled and I allowed myself to bask in the freedom of the intimate seance._

_"Tell me everything."_

_It told me **everything**. _

_I was unaware of how many minutes had passed since I cut the thread that I had wound between myself and the demon. We had retreated back upstairs and I was left feeling as cold as the vacated sheets from an almost-lover's bed. I wish I hadn't come back._

_Gideon scribed as I picked through my dictation of the questions asked and answers given. As best as I could, at least, as metaphysical conversations relied heavily on sensation and interpretive imagery over dialogue._

_Several times I had to pause and spell out any word that contained more than two syllables for my incompetent companion. Her gaze disturbed me so I stared at the stitches on the palms of my gloves._

_Crux' was a fragment of Mammon, a caliber of Spectra whose deliverance into this world had been very deliberate. A few hundred years festering under layers of clay, stealing souls of generations of children, born and unborn, from the inhabited space above. Generations of families abruptly extinguished with unexplained death. A beautifully foul and congested spirit that wrecked all in its space. I asked him what he wanted, and he simply responded with 'everything'._

_Ianthe, ever the multi-tasker while she chewed on the end of her pencil between bites of whatever snack was in reach, reviewed hours of footage from all corners of Drearburh home and strained to listen for ghostly replies on the EVP Recorder._

_Coronabeth flitted between her laptop and her phone. She managed the patron-only livestream from Gideon's camera and now worked to answer spectator's burning questions, promote their group and merchandise on social media, and finally contact the location's owner to let her know that Dominicus Paranormal Investigators had concluded the postmortem of Drearburh Home._

_Ms. Aiglamene was recommended a very good exorcist._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm playing around with POV- hopefully it translates well! In the next chapter I'm looking forward to introducing some new friends into the paranormal mix!


	3. The One Where Palamedes Telepathically Chokes Someone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This week on 6th House Unsolved, we investigate The Cohort Bar and Grill as a part of our ongoing investigation into the question: are ghosts real?"
> 
> ~Thank you Discord friends, for the individual alcoholic beverage ideas!~  
> *6th House Unsolved is this AU's Buzzfeed Unsolved parallel, check it out if you haven't yet*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What if we already are  
> Who we've been dying to become  
> In certain light I can plainly see  
> A reflection of magnificence  
> Hidden in you  
> Maybe, even in me- Sleeping at Last, Four

What did you get when the two most attractive web-series paranormal investigation channels collaborated at the famously haunted Cohort Bar and Grill?

You get 'DOMINICUS PARANORMAL INVESTIGATORS x 6TH HOUSE UNSOLVED' in a show featuring disgustingly famous internet celebrities Palamedes Sextus, whose research into the history and backgrounds of his paranormal investigations went unmatched by any other in the trade, and his partner Camilla Hect, legendary skeptic who delivered one-liners that made Gideon Nav roll in her metaphorical grave. 

Over a breakfast consisting of way too much orange juice pulp and Harrowhark's laser-glare practically toasting her own toast, Coronabeth laid down the itinerary for their lock down. Two weeks had passed since their most recent descent into Drearburh Home and the haunted jacuzzi-less basement, and the team was itching to try their hand at a bigger project.

The plan was, on the stereotypical cold and stormy night, to wrap up any last minute Q&A's, triple-check Ianthe's multitude of devices expertly placed around the establishment, and most importantly- determine who would be crowned 'lead investigator'.

A pissing contest was brewing between Coronabeth, who used her height, handshake, and hair to her advantage in a domination technique perfected in middle school, and Palamedes, who was one of the monochromatic humans Gideon had ever met. And she had met Harrowhark.

When the golden host of Dominicus Paranormal Investigators offered one beautiful manicured hand to the cinereal co-host of 6th House Unsolved, he delicately grasped her fingers and bowed his head to brush his lips over the tops of her knuckles.

Like a _fucking_ Disney prince.

Ianthe passively blinked twice at the odoriferous display before resuming her very important business demolishing level 1758 on Candy Crush Saga. It was easy to forget that the svelte Tridentarius shared near-identical DNA with Corona; their appearance and disposition resided on polar ice caps.

While her radiant sibling dressed in bright jewel tones with sequins and strutted like a model out of a Forever 21 catalog, Ianthe's personal color scheme committed to muted pastels that transformed her into an embodied whisper.

Like the sun and the moon; radiant and cool, gold and silver, and other poetic crap that made Gideon's brain go ' **404 Page Not Found** ' if she thought too hard about it.

Only on rare occasions did Gideon catch a glimpse of brilliance escape from its unadorned lady prison when their equipment tech caught a whisper of an EVP or registered a movement on the thermal imaging camera. In those moments of success, Ianthe's breath would hitch and her violet eyes would sparkle as it to proclaim: "proof is more valuable than views, suck on that!"

Gideon would even be generous and say that her enthusiasm was 'hot'.

What was NOT hot, however, was Ms. Nonagesimus and her lack of capacity for any sort of emotion other than vexation.

Their gothic ghost-speaker was Dominicus Paranormal Investigator's one-way ticket to standing out among the hundreds of other paranormal investigators and amateur haunt hunters. Unfortunately for Gideon, that meant that her Mistress of Imparting Doom and Gloom was "essential".

Harrow spent most of today keeping her arms folded tight like a straight jacket over her chest. She apparently used up all of her already diminutive number of socialization points earlier when interviewing the Cohort Bar and Grill's owners.

The near-feral medium had only been in Gideon's orbit for six months. In the span of those 182 and a half days, Harrow had smiled a total of five times (four out of the five were during her spectral seances), spent thirteen nights sharing nine different crappy motel rooms, and had made out with Gideon once.

There was an unspoken rule carved in the freshly dried cement block erected between them to never, ever mention what had happened that night. 

They were able to agree on that at least.

* * *

Gideon's eyes darted between the five characters perched on their bar stools.

The cameraman was given clearance to position herself behind the long counter with her back uncomfortably close to quite a few shelves of glassware, which she was hyper aware of avoiding while also trying to get a full shot of the group for filler footage.

Which meant that unlike her cocktailed-companions, she wasn't allowed to drink yet.

Gideon Nav knew she should have stayed home that day.

Furthest to the left, Camilla Hect savored her liquor and kept her gaze trained unflinchingly on the camera, armed with a sharp gleam. It would have been horrifyingly awkward for Gideon if she hadn't already been gym-buddies with the two-time bi-state welterweight champion and Thursday night spotter.

Coronabeth had nearly throttled her cameraman upon discovering a picture on Camilla's Instagram story showing the two sweaty women flexing shamelessly in the gym mirror.

Whether or not the other would consider her a 'friend' was debatable, but she never told Gideon to leave.

Which was practically 'best friend' status, in the redhead's opinion.

The amber spirit in Camilla's shot glass swirled before she sipped again. When ordered, the bar's owner Judith had sent her wife down into what Gideon could only assume was the 'forbidden hipster collection' to retrieve the specifically requested Isle of Raasay single malt Scottish whiskey.

The 6th House Unsolved skeptic was a woman of few words; those words did she speak provided the starved internet with juicy memes aplenty. Her best work included phrases that Gideon jealously stored away in her rusty mental filing cabinet for later use.

Without breaking her hawkish gaze towards the camera lens and the Gideon that accompanied it, Camilla tilted her head so that her slate brown hair tickled her companion's bony shoulder as she leaned in to whisper a few words into his ear. Palamedes imperceptibly inclined his head back and nodded in elegant agreement.

The two moved in such synchronous tandem that it nearly felt inappropriate to watch. As though she was an uninvited voyeur to a private encounter.

But Gideon had no qualms with what was appropriate or not, so she drank in the sight with a pang of uncomfortable longing. Being a touch-starved lesbian didn't make her any different from 99% of other single lesbians but it still didn't make her feel any better about her situation. 

Palamedes was every fourth grade math teacher's wet dream; comprised of every sort of anatomical angle the human body could possibly produce. His terrible posture only accentuated his severe composition. Luckily, the lanky investigator's likeness to a sentient anatomical skeleton model ended there.

Gideon wasn't a romantic person, per say, but Palamedes' smooth, pure gray eyes behind thin-wired glasses were something straight out of a sticky sweet Fabio smut book. He regarded each word that cartwheeled out of Coronabeth's glossy lips with scientific devotion- as though he was deciphering each syllable and computing its linguistic roots. 

On the bar counter, his Bacardi and Sprite sat untouched and staining the cherry wood with an expanding water ring. Camilla smartly placed a napkin underneath the sweating glass while Palamedes was absorbed in in gold-gilded tale of how Dominicus Paranormal Investigators came to fruition.

"Okay, so first I was like, 'Hm what does the world need right now? What can Icontribute to this platform that would be both fresh AND successful?' and of course I thought- ghosts! I mean, everyone likes a really gruesome ghost story. Look at your own show- you're the only reason people pay attention to Buzzfeed any more. Clearly you guys have your own formula for success and I feel like we have our own," Coronabeth cooed, only pausing to sip her Long Island Iced Tea out of a blue paper straw (no plastic allowed, sacrifices had to be made, and turtles were cute and must be protected at all costs).

The other Tridentarius twin added to the tale of their channel's conception in the precious moments when Corona had to stop chatting to breathe or languidly sip. In a low voice, she mentioned something about how having a medium on the team seemed to trigger more powerful paranormal events which in turn captured stronger evidence. 

Once her vivacious sister regained control of the conversation, the paler blonde resumed taking delicate drafts of her pomegranate martini between fishing out little beads of fruit that floated in the liquid with her fingernail. 

Gideon watched as a dribble of juice ran down her chin like blood.

Ianthe's vividly violet eyes blinked over her left shoulder to give Harrowhark a weirdly appreciative once-over before turning her attention back to her drink. Gideon also peeked over at the prickly creep at just the wrong time to watch her take a swig of her Rum and Black.

She reluctantly honed in as the slight muscles beneath Harrow's pale neck bobbed when she swallowed and the way she sucked her bottom lip inwards to capture any lingering taste.

Bitter and tang.

Gideon swallowed thickly and cleared her own throat before shouldering the camera back to a steadier, level position.

She hoped that Harrowhark choked.

Palamedes, bless his heart, patiently waited for Corona to conclude her speech on the importance of balancing new channel ideas and maintaining identity in an overwhelming social media hub, before bending his lean torso over the bar counter and fixating his steely gaze right onto Harrow.

Who, with divine retribution, choked.

Ianthe's pale eyebrows shot up so far into her hairline they disappeared and she hesitantly glanced down at her martini before deciding to give the asphyxiating goblin a weak pat on the back.

The asphyxiating goblin flapped her gloved hand in response as though the equipment tech was causing more harm than good, and eventually caught her breath.

Gideon snickered and made a mental note to take a clip of that moment to turn into a gif. 

"Sorry about that. Sometimes he forgets that telekinetic choking is not an acceptable social practice," Camilla's voice was about as smooth as her fancy whiskey, and her own dark eyes flashed with what could have been a smile. She crossed one neutral toned cropped pant leg over her opposite knee and lightly nudged the offending gentleman's hip with her ankle.

Out of the entire group, Palamedes had the grace to appear the most distressed over the state of his apparent telekinetic choking victim. "Terribly sorry, Nonagesimus. I was simply intending to inquire about your role with Dominicus Paranormal Investigators...it is a rare gift to be able to communicate with spirits and I look forward to witnessing you...'in action'." 

Harrowhark, flushed in rage, alcohol, and losing her fight against small hiccups, narrowed her beetle black eyes. In the lapse of silence between the six, the crinkle of her flexing gloved fingers around her chilled glass was amplified in the empty space of the bar. "I am a medium with or without the group. It helps pay the rent."

Her chilly response didn't seem to phase the 6th House Unsolved host in the slightest and he nodded his head before turning his apt attention back to the twins; however, Camilla kept her gaze locked on the little black-hole of misery who downed the last of her Rum and Black with a disgusted shudder.

"She secretly loves us, don't worry," Corona shook out her luxurious mane of golden curls in a way that she knew would break the awkward silence, "Anyways, a question I'm sure you've been asked like, a million times but I can't help myself." With a feline smile, the hostess planted her chin on the tops of her folded hands and rested her elbows on the counter, twisting on her seat to face the two guest hosts.

"How do you two handle rumors and speculation about your personal lives? Like, you can tell me off the record...Gideon, turn off the camera...are you two like, a couple?"

In 'Corona-speak', "Gideon, turn off the camera" meant that the compliant redhead would lower the camera and point it to the floor. It was definitely still recording, and Gideon had a feeling that both Camilla and Palamedes suspected as much.

Surprisingly though, neither party reacted with theatrical denials or whimsical excuses, nor did they instantly start making out against the bar to show off their unquenchable lust for one another.

A quick glance exchanging a myriad of emotions and expressions, without even speaking, was enough to make Gideon dizzy.

Camilla smiled into her drink as the bespectacled man settled a slender hand on his partner's bare ankle, and endearingly tilted his head as if the angle better aligned his boundless vocabulary. "Cam and I are...involved deeply in each other's lives. And find joy in working together, regardless if our opinions tend to stray in matters of the paranormal." 

Despite her knee-jerk reaction to burst out a refined 'THEY FUCK', Gideon could sense the seismic shift in the group's interest level. 

What was said on the hallowed ground of the gym, stayed at the gym.

Camilla was told about everything that had happened between her and Harrow. And Gideon was told about everything that happened between Cam and Pal...it was only fair.

Coronabeth sighed dreamily and absently twirled one thick curl around her index finger as she leaned further over the bar counter, "I don't know how you do it. Walking the tightrope between 'are they friends?' or 'are they lovers?' while your audience speculates in forums and comment sections...though your ship name leaves much to be desired. 'Camedes' or 'Palilla' sound like diseases," she stuck her tongue out prettily before pausing to sip her drink.

"Did you know that Gideon and Harrow's ship name is 'Griddlehark'? Personally I prefer 'Hardeon', for obviously reasons," Ianthe purred with glee as she KO'ed her two co-workers in one breath.

In a chorus of renewed choking, flabbergasted sputtering, deliciously toned arms flailing, and the soul-splitting shatter of glass on floorboards beneath Gideon's feet, that verbal trash fire was quickly extinguished. 

Camilla was first on the scene; she hopped down from the bar stool and held out her hands as though through sheer will power she could prevent any further destruction. Gideon, chest heaving and arm grappling at a shelf now missing a set of matching wine glasses, could barely hear her instructions as her dry tongue curled in on itself and swan dived down her wind pipe. 

How could she have missed 'Griddlehark' amidst hours spent scrolling through their social media? How could anyone misconstrue their relationship to be anything but volatile and gross? They were oil and water and burnt out matches and gloved hands raking hungrily through red hair...shit.

Shit. Shit Shit _shit._

Ianthe picked pomegranate seeds from her teeth as she too slid off her bar stool and withdrew her phone from her pocket. Gideon trembled as she watched the self-satisfied twin click and clack away at the screen, popping bubbles and virtual candies with flourishing little taps, as if terrorizing her cameraman and medium pre-showtime wasn't entertainment enough.

"Don't move, Nav...hey Judith? Marta? Can we borrow a broom? We'll pay for any and all damages!" Corona's voice cheerfully called out as her feet braced against the metal rungs at the base of her stool; her exuberant form propelled further over the edge of the counter so that she could see all of the damage done.

From her frozen in-place position, Gideon could see cleavage and everything about her terrible, horrible, no good very bad situation seemed a little brighter. But that sweet taste of happiness turned to ash in her mouth when the bar's owners arrived on the scene.

The precision and timeliness in their coordinated descent could only be performed by two former Marines who had seen their fair share of broken glass and gangs of slightly buzzed, and even less helpful, onlookers crowded around aforementioned broken glass.

Gideon felt her face flush with mortification as Judith, armed with the dustpan, and Marta, armed with the broom, invoked their legal right to not look mad, just disappointed.

She muttered a wobbly "sorry..." and gingerly tiptoed her way back out from behind the bar. 

Palamedes, spindly and lanky, had sparked a new conversation with Corona about how to split up their crew among the hot spots within the bar. His spider-like fingers twisted around each other as they plotted. Ianthe joined them only when they needed to confirm the locations of all of the tech and devices planted around the building.

She didn't want to even look at Harrow for fear of opening up the Pandora's box of absolute shit that was packed inside. She didn't dare. Not with 'Griddlehark' rotting on the ground like a peach long since fallen from the tree, doomed to stink with rot and decay.

Gideon wanted nothing more than to vaporize into a fine mist, but before she could bully her atoms into obeying, the bar's owners moved to grab their coats and address the investigators one last time.

"It's getting late and we were thinking of heading home. Marta can give you the spare key, just make sure to lock everything from the outside if you leave early," Judith informed the guests as succinctly as possible while her wife tied the trash bag's loops into a tight knot to safely dispose of hazardous glass.

Both women were reserved and stern in their mannerisms, quipped in their speech, but obviously very much in love with each other and their business. Their devotion leaked into every orifice of the establishment, and they hoped that the two teams would help put the properties' restless spirits at ease.

They held hands as they disappeared through the doorway and out into the stormy night.

Hoping no one would notice, Gideon dumped the remains of Camilla's Isle of Raasay single malt Scottish whiskey, Coronabeth's Long Island Iced Tea, and Ianthe's pomegranate margarita into Palamedes' nearly full glass of Bacardi and Sprite and chugged it in one fiery gulp. 

She missed Harrowhark's pale expression, crumpling like a dying star in a far off galaxy before completely shutting down, before the dark haired girl silently slid off her bar stool and fled from the room.

* * *

The Cohort Bar and Grill was previously a strip club that had once been a convent.

Most strip clubs were renowned for two things: their strippers and their ghosts. 

Even better: stripper ghosts. 

Most convent's were renowned for two things: their nuns and their ghosts.

Not as sexy but still a riot: nun ghosts.

As if that wasn't enough prospective fun for the Dominicus Paranormal Investigators and 6th House Unsolved crew, this stripper ghost got off on spooking beer snob's out of bathrooms with scratch attacks and screeches, knocking over unattended glassware (did that make Gideon a stripper ghost, too?), and even going as far as allegedly possessing a bartender and causing a huge... yet unapologetically sexy...scene during a happy hour rush.

The nun ghost apparently lurked in mirrors and only showed up in pictures, dark shadowy lumps with ghastly faces. To Gideon's great displeasure, Marta mentioned that they were especially fond of redheads.

Camilla insisted on using their own camcorder, for consistency's sake, to film an introduction to the 'on location investigation'. Shoulder to shoulder, intimately seated at a corner booth, the duo began.

"This week on 6th House Unsolved, we investigate The Cohort Bar and Grill as a part of our ongoing investigation into the question: are ghosts real?" Palamedes looked like a colorized Jack Skellington as he animatedly spoke, and Camilla schmoozed with the confidence of a woman who had hit the punching bag so savagely it burst open.

Which she totally had done before. Gideon was blessed to see the event in person once, and ever since then she wondered what it would be like to have her gym-partner step on her.

Was that weird? It was probably weird.

Corona observed from a distance with trembling delight, and practically mouthed along with their script.

Ms. Nonagesimus was relocated to the designated tech room with Ianthe as company, so that there would be no "information contamination".

Outside pressure from viewers and skeptics to prove that she was a valid medium, Harrowhark was forbidden from accessing the history behind the chosen location and the gnarly deaths or events that thinned the veil and brought ghostly chaos into the world.

That way, any and all information that she collected from the willing spectral participants could later be refuted by Coronabeth's research.

Which, without failure in each investigation, was always completely accurate.

Even Gideon had to grudgingly admit, Harrow was terribly good at what she did.

The communication between the medium and the living residents was usually restricted to "Hi, hello, yes I am weird. Yes, I dress like a mortician for the aesthetic. No, I'm not going to ask if the ghost is horny."

Judith Deuteros and Marta Dyas did not want to know if the ghost was horny. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! It took me a week just to figure out how to start this chapter but as I got to introducing our new friends it felt better. I realize that I write like I'm playing with dolls in a dollhouse- I position and pose the characters and enjoy picturing the scene, but I need to work on active dialogue (and formatting dialogue properly because OH BOY do I not know what I'm doing).  
> Thank you everyone for your interest! Be prepared for Chapter 4- DPI, 6th House Unsolved, and stripper/nun ghosts!


	4. The One Where Harrowhark Loses Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Murder, gore, demon possession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what." - Salman Rushie, The Satanic Verses

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, The Cohort Bar and Grill:

_The roiling alcohol in my belly doesn't help the initial, unnecessary wave of sugary nausea that comes upon seeing a brutally mutilated ghost._

_She is **magnificent** in her gore._

_In her gore crusted hair and her gore smeared mouth. In the freckles of blood and memories of cheap perfume._

_She greets me when I first entered her space._

_And it was, without a doubt, her space. She is splattered over the walls and the floors and the stairs. Pearly spectral ectoplasm drips from the ceiling, soundless and unnoticed by my companions._

_I don't warn Gideon as she steps into a thick puddle of the stuff, even though I know that her converse will not register the sensation nor stain. Not that I care._

_The beautifully battered spirit clings to the ceiling above and twists her neck into an unnatural angle to watch us. I dare not make eye contact._ _She can't know that I can see her, not just yet._

_Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her exposed spinal cord arch and her vertebrae bulge as she skitters across the hanging iron light fixtures above._

_She could be anyone. Anything. Saint or sinner, something in the hazy gray limbo where most humans hid, caged within these walls like a mangled canary._

_We begin our lock-down by splitting into two groups; Coronabeth, Ianthe, and Camilla investigating the cellar, while Palamedes, Gideon, and I took to the women's washroom and main dining area._

_Gideon still wouldn't look at me. Golden eyes remained obstinately fixed on either Camilla or Coronabeth. 'Griddlehark' would have to be addressed later._

_Not that I care._

_A soft, dribbling cough came from the ceiling and I watched as a wet glob of spectral phlegm silently spat onto the floorboards in front of me._

_I ache to know her name; my fingers are stifled by the gloves but I smother the rising desperation._

_I am always in control._

* * *

"You know how in Scooby-Doo, whenever Fred says 'Let's split up and look for clues,' it always ends up being a bad idea? Why do I have a feeling that that's what we're doing here?" Gideon's very fantastic cartoon impressions were pointedly ignored by both Palamedes and Harrowhark as the trio of paranormal investigators got down to business.

Palamedes, with his osseous-carved features softened by the fuzzy grey quality on the camcorder's night vision screen, braced his hands against the porcelain sink. Gideon kept the camera aimed towards the co-host of 6th House Unsolved from her own designated spot on the hardwood bench that faced the row of mirrors and sinks.

Their miniature medium stalked the shadows of the main dining hall alone, and mercifully, maintained her vow of silence over the walkie-talkie. She would wait, muted now, to answer either group's summons; her seance would be the grand finale of the spook-tacular evening.

Gideon and Palamedes were delegated with the task of rousing spirits from their unholy rest in the women's bathroom.

This double-feature investigation would not be live-streamed; the compromise was negotiated between both Coronabeth and Palamedes in order to maintain quality content for both audiences without deviating too far from each individual show's norm.

Dominicus Paranormal Investigators would provide the equipment, the hype by uploading their video first, and the clairvoyant medium. 6th House Unsolved would provide the views and sponsors.

Even Gideon Nav, whose knowledge of the ins-and-outs of the entertainment business was limited to 'hold the camera and block the haters', knew that this was a match made in paradise.

Or a match made with fire and brimstone, which seemed far more appropriate considering that Palamedes was ready to begin. Gideon's hand flattened against the smooth plastic of the camcorder and felt the nylon hand grip tighten over her knuckles as she lofted the device to capture the moment.

While Palamedes' gaunt figure kept facing away from the camera, he began in a tone of barely concealed conspiratorial delight, "Here in the women's wash room at the Cohort Bar and Grill, I am joined by DPI cameraman Gideon Nav, as we admire the self-rimming sinks and alleged hot spot for paranormal activity." His reflection was so artfully angled in the mirror as he spoke that Gideon would have wept, if she wasn't too busy cackling at the notion of 'self-rimming'.

Mirror-Palamedes carried on over Gideon's noises, "Patrons of this establishment have reported being scratched and pushed, witnessed stall doors opening and closing on their own, and some even claim to have seen the spirit of a young woman standing behind them in the mirror."

With effortless drama, the co-host spun around so that he now faced the camera, his expressive eyes flashing viridescent in the night-vision filter. Gideon audibly gulped, because she could be dramatic too.

"Thus! We stand here where the veil between our world and the other side is fragile...if you are here, spirits, feel free to interact with us. Touch us, speak to us...make a sound or move something!" As Palamedes beseeched the ghosts, Gideon shifted her hips in discomfort and tried to turn her attention to anything in the room but her increasingly sore ass.

Working with Palamedes Sextus was like trying to cram a border piece of a puzzle into the middle section. Without the steady Camilla Hect at his side, his nerves had already caused him to jump when Gideon sneezed. To round out the awkward moment, he offered her a silk handkerchief with his initials embroidered on the corner. She didn't use it. 

This was going to be a long evening...

The back of her head lightly bumped against something hard that was on the wall behind her, and she froze for just a moment as her brain rationalized between 'hands coming out of the walls grabbing her' to 'what sort of normal and appropriate item might be on a wall?' and gladly settled on the latter.

Judith and Marta, the Cohort Bar and Grill's owners, had a very specific taste in decor. Dark blood-red wood, heavy velvets, antique cigar boxes on each table filled with sets of cards and dice, a masculine cabaret that suited smooth smoke, rough jazz, and beautiful women.

On the dark plaster walls of the bathroom were displayed framed memorabilia that Gideon was tempted to burglar; 1940's pin-up models in their vintage underthings, in varying stages of domestic erotica, smiling upon the light-night occupants of the ladies' powder room. 

In the darkness, Gideon allowed herself a few appraising pans of the camera over the framed delicacies as Palamedes began to elaborate more on the history of the haunted establishment. With a soft grunt she relieved herself of her position on the hard bench and gingerly stepped towards the set of four stalls to her right while the adherent 6th House Unsolved's low and calculating voice filled the quiet space.

"Over one hundred and fifty years of history has lived and died in this space; thousands of lives leaving their mark. The Sisters of St. Glaurica built a small convent on this land in 1862 and began their mission of serving the community and providing aid to the poor. "' _Fiat enim ut sit'_ , 'Let it be so': a motto that the current bar owners, Mrs. Judith Deuteros and Marta Dyas keep to this day in respect to their predecessors," Gideon had meandered from the first bathroom stall into the second while Palamedes orated, her brain having tuned him out when he began speaking Latin in lieu of scoping the viewfinder for any hints of movement or shadow. 

Self-rimming sinks, to Gideon's disappointment, were the most stimulating thing to be found, amidst the spotless toilet bowls and meticulously folded hand towels. She moved on to the second stall.

The soft rasp of the stall door hinges filled dead air in the time it took for the gangling young man to take a breath before continuing, "Unfortunately, in 1962, on the day of their order's One Hundredth Anniversary, at the hands of two of their own order, the convent was set aflame and all within its walls perished. After the disastrous event, it was found in the remnants of diaries and the evidence of planned arson, the blame fell upon Sister Lachrimorta and Sister Asiamorta- claiming to have received divine directive from God to start the fire, and their plot to destroy the religious order was discovered much too late."

Gideon winced as she backed out of the middle stall and slowly swept the camera back over to where Palamedes stood by the sinks. His twiggy fingers were steepled under the harsh point of his chin, and his glasses glinted as his gaze sought out shadows in the mirror.

He continued, "Not long after the rubble was cleared, the remaining infrastructure was the base for rebuilding what would be christened "Canaan Mansion": a popular strip club and the setting for the second tragic incident to take place on this site. In 1989, two employees by the names of--"

_Shhh..._

There was no denying that Palamedes had also heard the phantom whisper, more of a passing thought than a sound, as both he and Gideon went rigid and held their collective breaths. Somewhere in the distance of darkened bathroom between them, they were joined by a third presence. 

"Did you hear that, too?" In the smallest whisper she could muster, Gideon squinted back down at her camera's view finder and slowly spun in a circle to capture every slightly creaked open stall door, the deserted bench, and then finally back to the row of porcelain sinks where Palamedes had once stood. "Do you think it's one of the stripper ghosts?"

He had removed a spirit box from his Burberry messenger bag, fingers trembling with excitement when they fiddled with the buttons and settings, as the camera focused back on him, "Yes, yes, their performing names were 'Dulcinea' and 'Cytherea'. They were beautiful women found viciously murdered at the club, with no evidence found to name any suspects or motives. It was one of the most gruesome double homicides that the state had ever seen- they said that the victim's blood dripped from the ceiling and soaked through the floor for days after they were found..." 

Knowing that a bloody, vengeful, pissed off stripper ghost had now joined the chat was honestly a bit of a mood-killer for Gideon, who now was regretting taking that jungle-juice gulp of everyone's leftover drinks earlier. Her stomach gave an uncomfortably acidic lurch as Palamedes' lithe form glided in front of the camera to settle on the edge of the bench, with the spirit box clutched eagerly in his shaking hands.

"I will now offer for you to use this spirit box to communicate with us, if you wish." In the dreary night vision of the viewfinder, Palamedes' grey ensemble gave him the illusion of melting into his surroundings. Gideon stood still now, her back towards the mirrors, training the camera on the show's co-host.

Even though her teeth threatened to chatter with the minute, tiny aftershocks that came after the shock of hearing a spirit's whisper, her hands remained steady under the compliance of years of training. They would never tremble.

On a scale of one to ten, with one being 'Griddlehark' and ten being 'babe-filled jacuzzi', Gideon's list of 'favorite things' ranked the spirit box at a very firm two. One and a half, especially now.

Without a proper warning, the explosive white noise made the cameraman jolt as though she were prodded with a taser. Palamedes ignored her as he delicately set the deafening device down on the bench to his right. 

"Any spirits who are present can use the quickly rotating channels to communicate in words or phrases...listen close..." Gideon didn't have to be told twice as Palamedes had to nearly shout to be heard, but she wanted to point out that she really didn't have a choice in whether or not she had to listen because it was so damn loud she couldn't even hear herself think.

Harrowhark would probably chime in that there wasn't much thinking going on in her over-sized head, anyways.

Before she could get too involved with totally owning the menacing medium in their pretend-argument in her over-sized head, Gideon's attention was quickly grabbed by the garble of words that interjected the stabs of fuzzy pulses.

**-DULCINEA-**

Palamedes' fingers fiddled with the sides of his glasses as he hunched further on the bench, nearly vibrating with excitement as the word 'Dulcinea' flashed in bold on the spirit boxes' screen, confirming the presence of one of the stripper ghosts. "If that is you, Ms. Dulcinea, tell me- why are you still here? Why haven't you moved on?"

At least his questions aired on the more courteous side of inquiry compared to Coronabeth's typical litany of 'why can't you just like, /not/ haunt stuff?' and 'you know you're dead, right?'. Gideon took a cautious step forward to zoom the camera in on the spirit box's screen right as the dark text changed; the same voice interrupted the static to answer.

**-WON'T LET ME GO-**

The warbling female moaned the final word of her answer before the rapid-fire distortion dominated Gideon's ear drums. A chill of cold sweat licked down the back of her neck as she watched Palamedes formulate the next question, his overwhelming energy rubbing off and giving her the jitters. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and adjusted her grip to tighten around the camcorder.

"Who won't let you go? Is it the same spirit or spirits that have been attacking visitors in this bathroom, as well as in the main dining area?" Palamedes' questions were swallowed by the booming rapid-fire beats of radio frequencies, but amidst the hurricane of noise, the accusation was clear.

**-CYTHEREA-**

Even the colorless ambiance of night-vision couldn't mask the surprise that bloomed over Palamedes' tight features. The name registered faintly, fluttering around in the back of Gideon's vertex like a butterfly, before she blurted out in confusion, "Whaaa?" The spirit box only pulsed deafening static in response.

Palamedes now clutched the device out in front of him as though it was a consecrated relic; his beautiful eyes fixated in reverence as he raised his voice.

"Are you saying that Cytherea won't let you pass on? Why is that? Is she not a victim of that senseless crime as--"

The temperature in the wash room plummeted and a keening voice punched through the static.

**-KILLED ME-**

**- _SHE_ KILLED ME-**

Gideon whirled sharply as the triad of stall doors slammed shut in quick succession, metal on metal reverberating in dissonance with the static. Out of her line of vision, Palamedes hissed sharply and tried to speak again, only to be interrupted by a final blast of noise. 

**-SHE IS HERE-**

Three things happened next that sent Gideon running out of that bathroom.

First, the incandescent lights above the sinks flickered to life. The unexpected vicissitude blinded both living occupants, and they both yelped as their eyes streamed. 

Second, the spirit box's incessantly pounding rhythm came to a crawling, choked croak of noise before it went quiet. Palamedes, through his handsomely squinted tear-filled eyes, wrangled with the battery cover and lamented its melted innards.

Third, the long-forgotten walkie-talkie at Gideon's belt crackled to life with the delicate sound of laughter. Laughter that poured unnaturally from pursed black-lipsticked lips that had probably never experienced the simple pleasure of humming, laughing, singing, or anything pleasant. 

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, medium extraordinaire with the chronic bitch syndrome, was fucking laughing.

Which sent Gideon, who definitely did not care about Harrow's well being, hurtling out of the well-lit bathroom, down the cramped hallway, and into the open main dining area. 

* * *

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, The Cohort Bar and Grill:

_"Then Delilah said to Samson, 'You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied.'"_

_I could taste her final moments in the spaces between my teeth, razor thin heat sliding against my gums._

_When I touched her, bare-handed in my wanton temptation- she grabbed back. Fiercely, like a lover's embrace._

_Indulgence is as foreign to me as the presence nestled on my tongue._

_Her presence is like a mating of deadly sin, envious, and wrathful, and I realize that the gore that has tattooed upon her form does not all belong to her._

_She is a starved wolf in sheep's skin, still fresh with dried blood._

_Indulgence is permitting myself to look at her. In her malformed, misshapen, irresistible envy I fell into her trap. A honeyed death rattle and the bluest of irises that blinked behind vein-stained lids._

_The communication device that connected me to my companions sat undisturbed on the table. I refused to be summoned like a dog trained to its master's whistle._

_She came to me as soon as the others left the room. She smelled like rust on iron; she clung to my sinuses which made my covered fingers curl against my lap._

_Indulgence is expecting the warm promise of breath that never came against the back of my neck when she came closer._

_Her hair draped against her sunken shoulders with wet, thin ringlets, which swung with each slight tilt of her head, as she crawled around my chair before coming to a stop in front of me._

_Indulgence is counting each soft, precious crack of grinding bones as her deranged skeleton rose from the floor, her ghostly structure unused to standing fully upright._

_The walkie-talkie did not stir; we were alone._

_Indulgence is not breaking eye contact as I remove my glove. It is the moist heaving that expels pearly mucus from her lips into the crook of her bone-thin arm. It is the smile she gives me when her face, obliterated and bruised, when she looks up._

_I need to know what she has done. What she has seen. What she is._

_Indulgence is touching her._

_But I am a fool._

_Her hands are at my throat and her eyes are no longer blue._

_Ragged nails peel at my layers, flaying me gently, and I bear witness without consent, captive as she notifies the others with the walkie-talkie and soft laughter that comes from my mouth but is not my own, that it is time to play._

_I see a flash of red hair and gold eyes first, and for the first time in my life, I feel fear._

_And it is too late because She sees her too._

_and I have lost control._

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your support and feedback!!! <3 This chapter was a real bully to face- focusing on action and dialogue over description was a challenge, but I hope that it was coherent in design. Thanks for sticking with this adventure- in the next chapter we will see what becomes of our prickly goth queen! I plan to develop more of our beloved 'Griddlehark' and we may even get a 'heart-to-heart'. Or close to one, at least.


	5. The One with the Holy Water Squirt Gun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Guns, murder, Corona's texting, Gideon's pouting, Harrow's feelings, and Camilla's lack of fucks to give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Crikey means gee whiz, wow!"- Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter

**do u wanna talk about it?**

\- _Read 7:26am_

**i knwo ur awake i see u**

\- _Read 7:31am_

**it wasnt her it was probs just the ghost**

_\- Read 7:34am_

**talk 2 her plz**

**i wont beg**

**plz gideon**

**plz**

\- _Read 7:35am_

" _OW!_ " With a solid thwack of a 120-thread count pillow, Gideon's migraine rocketed up the comparative pain scale from 'distressing' to 'unimaginable, unspeakable'. Gideon didn't have much room on the motel couch to curl up any tighter, so she settled on squirming uncomfortably and holding up one arm to shield herself from further assault and battery. Coronabeth, wielding her crusty pillow, pouted her lips into an imperial frown and smacked at Gideon again.

"As your boss, I'm ordering you to stop ignoring me," For someone who had not slept for thirty-six hours, Corona managed to look radiant in the harsh fluorescent glow of the Pantone 448 C-colored bedside lamp. 

Gideon lowered her shield arm for long enough to peer up at her adversary and give her the most pitiful puppy-eyes she could manage, "I came here to have a good time...and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now..."

_Thwack_

"Gideon Nav!"

" _OW!_ I'm a bad bitch, you can't kill me!"

_Thwack_

Coronabeth 1, Gideon 0.

Gideon, now nursing a lightly abused arm along with the throbbing pulse behind her eye socket, held out her hands in surrender as she maneuvered her cramped posture into an upright sitting position.

"There's nothing for us to talk about. She said what she said, and I said what I said-" With the disapproving arch of one perfectly plucked golden eyebrow, Corona made Gideon flinch and jerk her hands back into the assumed 'don't hurt me' position. " _Fine_ , I guess that running away isn't really.../saying/...anything, but what could I have said to that?" In the moment Gideon took to draw breath, the pillow was cocked and loaded.

In the face of death by 'thwack', she attempted to explain herself, "What do you want me to say, Corona? 'Ah yes, Harrowhark, I acknowledge that deep down you wanna bang me, and I think we should totally talk about our feelings; maybe we'll even hug!' And I know she was technically possessed, or whatever, but since when do ghosts just make shit up like that? Huh?"

The silence was almost worse than the pillow assault and to fill in the pause by doing something... _anything_...to not see Coronabeth's expression shift from annoyance to something as awful as pity, Gideon shoved her fists against her eyes and groaned. 

"You know that she didn't say that, Gideon..." The sticky olefin cushion next to her crinkled with Corona's weight as the tall blonde posed herself next to her sullen companion, the pillow casually tossed onto the bed where Ianthe had kept silent, ear-buds in and eyes glued to her phone. When Gideon had been invited to spend the night in the Tridentarius twin's room that night, she had hope for more sexy pillow-fights in lingerie and less 'let's talk about all your problems' therapy session. 

Gideon blinked to clear the swirling grey blurs that manifested when she pulled her hands away from her face and flopped back, ruining any chance of not having a sore back for the rest of the day, and blearily frowned over at her manager. "Well, I wish she would have said that instead...would've made more sense. Who wouldn't want to bang this?" With the least sexy wink she had probably ever made her facial muscles create, Gideon couldn't even scrounge up the self-respect to do follow-up finger-guns.

It wasn't the first time Harrowhark Nonagesimus had thrown her off her game.

Coronabeth reached out and placed one of her golden bejeweled hands on Gideon's thigh with just the right amount of pressure to grant her all of Gideon Nav's undivided attention. 

"I want you to close your eyes," The tips of her stiletto manicure dipped lightly against Gideon's polyester basketball shorts as Corona's cooed, "and recount everything that happened last night. From the time we all met up in the dining area. Can you do that for me?"   
  


Gideon would chug every ounce of pulp-less orange juice at the breakfast buffet and then kiss Palamedes Sextus on the mouth (with tongue), if Coronabeth asked her to with that tone. She mutely nodded and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the wafts of Victoria Secret's Bombshell perfume that made her pleasantly dizzy, and put herself back at the very moment she came hurtling out of the bathroom and towards the sound of soul-siphoning laughter...

* * *

Thank you Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the sky that Harrowhark wasn't levitating or spewing pea-soup all over the dining room when Gideon finally located the light switch and flicked the black iron chandeliers into life. It was technically against DPI protocol to turn on the lights during an investigation, but drastic times called for drastic measures.

"U-uh...hey, Nonagesimus? Want to cut that spooky shit out?" Gideon barely registered Palamedes joining her side as her gaze locked onto her sinister little creep. Harrowhark sat where the company had last left her, dark and hunched in a table tucked away against an ebony-wood paneled wall to the right of the bar. 

And she was still laughing. Louder now, to the point where she had one ungloved hand pressed over her lips, as if to bashfully conceal her uncouth glee in decent company. The foreign flash of exposed skin sent a small shock of panic through Gideon's chest and her heart hammered, knowing that Harrowhark never removed her gloves unless she was busy chatting with a ghost. 

It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that this ghost was doing a little more than just 'chatting' with the small-scale medium. 

Palamedes' clever voice sounded far too loud in junction with Harrow's quickly fading giggles, even though he directed his whisper towards Gideon, "I've viewed hours of your team's material, and I've never once seen her do...this...is this some sort of new seance technique?" 

_"iS tHiS sOmE sOrT oF nEw SeAnCe TeChNiQuE?"_ Gideon wanted to shoot back sarcastically, but bit her tongue because Coronabeth might skin her alive if she insulted Mr. Sextus with Spongebob memes.

Instead she held the camcorder aloft, because the show must go on, even though her heart was somersaulting against her ribs with...concern.

Yeah, that's what this feeling was- a mild case of concern. "No, something's wrong," Gideon took a slow step forward towards the now silent blob of black, like Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter approaching a crocodile, and called out, "Yo, Harrow, c'mon now..."

_"She's a little busy right now, sweetheart. Wait your turn and I might share~"_

If the horrid giggles weren't nauseating enough, Gideon's jungle juice concoction gurgled obnoxiously in response to the lilting, girlish, and very not-Harrow voice coming from Harrow's mouth.

_"What's that saying...'curiosity killed the cat'? Well, this little pussycat couldn't wait to keep her hands off of me, so I obliged. I like the company. But she asks the most boring questions..."_

Possessed-Harrow's attention was turned to the approaching sound of footsteps, when the three other investigators answered the call to action. Camilla appeared first, assessing the situation in a sharp look-over before locking herself into place in front of Palamedes as though they were going to morph into Megazord. Next, strutting up from the depths of the Cohort Bar and Grill's cellar as if it were her own personal runway, was Coronabeth, brandishing her filming cellphone in one hand and the walkie-talkie in the other, her rhinestone encrusted 'DPI' precariously attached to the top of her curls. Ianthe brought up the rear looking as bland as a bowl of cold mashed potatoes in her twin's shadow, except for the inquisitive, predatory look she set on Harrowhark upon entry to the dining room.

Without breaking a sweat, Corona began issuing orders to her team after pocketing the bedazzled walkie-talkie into her matching bedazzled belt-holster, "Ianthe, take some Polaroids of her and the room and see if any phenomenon shows up. What did she say so far, Gideon? Is it one of the stripper ghosts? Hey! Stripper ghost! What are you doing with our medium? Can you please, like, stop?" 

Unnaturally, not-Harrow's black lip-stick lips cracked into a beguiling smile, and the voice that slithered out made everyone shut-up and freeze.

_"She has the most delicious thoughts about you, pet. I don't blame her...come a little closer so I can see you better."_

Dark, obsidian eyes were staring straight at Gideon, and not-Harrow's Cheshire grin stretched even farther when the cameraman inched closer. That deadlocked gaze made Gideon feel as though it could see straight through her clothing, through each freckled layer of skin, down to the very marrow of her bones and deeper.

To the places where Gideon stored precious memories of stolen kisses in hotel hallways and the crinkle of Harrow's nose when she genuinely smiled.

_"I used to like gingers, too. None were as handsome as you though~ Tell me, ginger, did you know that she likes the way you kissed her neck? And she likes your hands."_

Mortified was too bland an emotion for how Gideon Nav felt. Mortified, as she felt her four companions all hold their collective breath, eyes glued to this slow-motion car crash unfolding with mixed emotions that could be summed up with a simple 'yikes'.

Soft clicks from Ianthe's pastel blue Polaroid camera tickled the awkward silence. The ghost possessing their miniature medium seemed to relish in the rapt attention from her audience, and she continued.

_"I think that she wants to touch you again. Maybe that's why she was so eager to touch me- she seemed so lonely, and I was always a sucker for lonely little girls. That's why I made it my job to help people feel less...lonely."_

Not-Harrow hadn't moved much the entire time she spoke, only lowering the starkly bare hand that had covered her mouth back down to rest on the table. 

"Um, excuse me! Are you Cytherea or Dulcinea? Have you been the one attacking the patrons of the bar? Why are you doing that? Also, I want to speak to Harrow, no offense." Coronabeth, chivalrous and lovely to the point where Gideon would crawl on her belly and kiss her feet in gratitude for capturing the uncomfortable spotlight, bounced around Gideon and filled the viewfinder with curves and conviction.

With a scrutinizing tilt of her head, Not-Harrow's sweetness disintegrated like cotton-candy in rain, and the spirit's voice answered back in a stony, matter-of-fact tone.

_"I'm sure that Dulcie has already cried wolf to you and ruined my fun. So to answer your questions, blondie: Cytherea, yes, and because I want to. If I'm going to be stuck here until there is a vacancy spot open in hell, then I might as well enjoy myself. Besides, I only pick on pretty girls."_

Her pitch eyes flickered back to Gideon and her lips curled into a smile that could have been considered seductive if it wasn't warped and wasted on Harrow's pointed face. Black lipstick had begun to flake off, and slips of the pink flesh of her bottom lip split through the makeup with each spoken word.

Then, Not-Harrow, Cytherea, made her first mistake. 

She slid her gaze to the other occupants of the well-lit dining room, and with the worst judgement possible, settled on Camilla. 

Camilla Hect, nicknamed 'Fast and Fury-fists' by her adoring boxing fans, bestowed by her social media following with the catchphrase 'What the Hect?', and the inspiration for all of Gideon's sweaty locker room wet-dreams, looked ultimately unbothered and returned the stare unblinking. 

_"I wonder what I would find if I peeked into your sharp little head, doll. Wanna try?"_

That was Cytherea's second mistake.

Palamedes Sextus, to Gideon's complete shock and horror, withdrew a small handgun from his designer messenger bag, took three ridiculously long strides towards where Harrowhark sat smirking, before shooting her point-blank in the face.

* * *

"Hit her again, Cor,"

" _Ow!"_ With a harder, more solid thunk of the 120-thread count pillow, the commanding order from the pale bitch-twin on the bed was carried out with gusto.

"Gideon Nav, that is NOT what happened!" Coronabeth's voice was approaching dog-whistle shrill, which meant eminent incineration of the remaining shreds of Gideon's migraine addled-head. 

"Would you stop that!? I know I was being dramatic with what Harrow said- but that's what SexPal did! He shot her in the face!"

"Yeah, with his dinky little holy water pistol from the dollar store. Do you really think that I haven't spent the past hour re-watching that clip over and over? It's going to go viral. Stick to the story, Nav, or I'll tell Harry that you spent the night crying in our room," Ianthe's threat was as sobering as a cold ice shower after a grueling workout, and Gideon quickly shook her head and raked a hand through her already mused hair.

"Fine."

"/Fine/."

Coronabeth whispered her own 'fine' with a lesser degree of malice, only because she liked having the last word in everything. She settled her fingers back onto Gideon's thigh, as though that touch was the trigger to continuing the recollection about when Palamedes Sextus shot Harrowhark in the face with his holy water-filled plastic pistol gun.

* * *

Camilla was the only one who seemed entirely undisturbed by the fact that Palamedes had squirted thrice in the face of a Cytherea-possessed Harrowhark. In fact, she cracked a proud little smile and finally spoke out over the ringing chorus of "Palamedes, No!" (Coronabeth), "What the FUCK?" (Gideon), "Hahaha yeet" (Ianthe), and "Splghgh" (that one was Harrow, mouth full of holy water).

"It's moments like this I will never forget," Camilla declared, dripping with serene sarcasm, as she silently stalked to join her companion's side while the three Dominicus Paranormal Investigators remained stationary.

Without lowering his surgeon-steady hands or breaking eye contact with the possessed woman, Palamedes kept his finger crooked around the orange plastic trigger and effortlessly retorted, "With a good therapist, hopefully I will!"

Their banter was cut off short; however, when the internal battle between Cytherea and her unwilling host seemed to unravel: the result of holy water or Harrow's natural ability to shut out literally anyone regardless of their deceased status.

Fluctuating between Cytherea's teasing soprano and Harrowhark's sandpaper contralto, the medium and haunting spirit battled in a strange one-person dialogue that included rapidly changing expressions as each fought for control.

_"I'm having far too much fun playing with your friends, sweetheart, so please /shut up/."_

"I...release...you..."

_"Oh, she has claws! Dulcinea had claws, too, but they weren't enough to stop me. You know that I killed her, right? I figured she'd tell you that by now...but I bet you don't know why I did it. Wanna know?"_

"Qui r-re...reprobatus...est umbra...tua..."

_"I killed her because I wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine. To make her feel the same fear and hopelessness that she made me feel when she stole my best clients and my time. She stole my song. /My song. 'Love to Love You' was MINE and she took it. Everyone loved sweet, pretty, soft little Dulcinea_

"Get out...you bitch..."

_"I lost my job. I lost everything. I killed her because she was slowly killing me. And now that slut keeps me tied to this place..."_

_"Oh shit."_

Harrowhark Nonagesimus gave a final low, guttural moan of pain before collapsing, and Gideon broke her oath to never run, for any reason, for the second time that day.

* * *

"...are you going to hit me again?"

Gideon did not want to look at either Coronabeth or Ianthe, so she kept her eyes shut tight.

Everything in her body ached, from the follicles in her scalp to the tips of her toenails; a deep, exhausting ache that nullified all of the panic and excitement that had coursed with the surge of adrenaline earlier. Now it was past eight in the morning and the flimsy curtains were letting in sunlight, and she wanted to go to sleep.

After Harrow had regained consciousness, she responded mutely to all of their questioning before threatening to allow Cytherea to possess her again if it meant that they would leave her alone. So, in uncomfortable silence, both crews of 6th House Unsolved and Dominicus Paranormal Investigators packed up their things, politely pushed in the chairs, and locked the doors to the Cohort Bar and Grill, before parting ways. 

Mrs. Judith Deuteros and Mrs. Marta Dyas were recommended a very good exorcist. 

Refusing assistance, Harrowhark had hobbled herself to the hotel room and slammed the door in Gideon's face before locking it with a seething 'fuck you'. 

"No, I'm not going to hit you again. I can't bear to see you like this, Nav...go take a nap, and I'll wake you up when it's time to check-out, okay? Ianthe is going to go check on Nonagesimus to make sure she hasn't died...or worse, run away," Coronabeth carefully picked herself up off of the couch, the cheap fabric leaving swirling imprint markings on the back of her spray-tan thighs.

"You're going to have to, like, talk to her. I don't what happened between you guys, what you did or didn't do or whatever, but for the sake of the show, I need you to figure it out and make up. Got it?" She made space for Gideon to resume her fetal position, but pressed no further.

Gideon Nav fell into an uneasy and queasy sleep as Harrow's...no, Cytherea's, voice crawled around her conscience, leaving a slime trail of blood in her wake, as 'Love to Love You' played on repeat until she woke up hours later in a cold sweat. 

"I love to love you, baby

Do it to me again and again  
You put me in such a awful spin, in a spin~"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was such a fun chapter to write! I appreciate everyone who's taken the time to read, leave kudos, and leave comments! I hope this finds you in good health, and that you enjoyed this chapter! <3 In the next, we'll see some confrontation and a healthy dose of steam room honesty.

**Author's Note:**

> My first jab at indulgent fan fiction in many years, so please be cruel in your judgement. I plan to attempt to write a full chapter every 2 weeks or so! If you have any critiques or if you happen to like any of this, do let me know- I adore 'Ghost Adventures' and every other trashy paranormal investigation show so be prepared for more tropes and sass.


End file.
